


Jumbled Yarn

by LambentLaments



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, anti-sunlight and shadow cliche
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 19:31:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3740917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LambentLaments/pseuds/LambentLaments
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were Will and Nico, that was all there was to it. All that mattered was that for the moment, they were in each other’s embrace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jumbled Yarn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> At the end of a two-month long quest, Nico finds Will in the middle of the night.

“Will?”

In the fuzzy twilight of semi consciousness he heard his voice. He imagined the voice tipping him over to the dreamscape, because for a long time that voice had belonged solely in his imagination. But awareness seeped in, and he was slowly alert to the bedsheet wrapped around him, the calming, heavy breathing of his siblings, and of the hands gripping his arms.

He didn’t think he could ever get used to the feeling of being both compressed and liquefied at the same time. His consciousness overrode his physical form, moving a hundred miles per hour.

“What did I tell you about shadowtravelling?” He said almost instinctively as his back landed in a different bed. After a surge of complete darkness even the glowing green lights seemed luminescent, or perhaps that was just Nico, whose face was looking down at him, and the lights hit his face in a way that was beautiful, if only because it was _real_. “I missed you, too.” Nico said softly.

The hands left his arms, and felt an irrational urge to grasp them back, but Nico was only removing his sword from his belt. He watched him as he climbed into bed, his shirt overriding his torso, showing a sieve of white underneath. He was wearing the same shirt he’d worn when he’d left, but where it had once hung loosely off him, it was now too short.

“Two months, Nico. Two months.”

Nico’s cool hand travelled towards his back and to his shoulder, forming an embrace. He was touching him, on his own free will, and there was a ‘maybe’ forming in Will’s mind, one that brought out the dreams he had of Nico, and of secretly frustrated moments when Nico was too close for constraint to be less than abject torture. Where their skin met, Will could feel the darkness within him, as he had nearly a year ago. But this time he felt selfishly glad as well as apprehensive, because Nico had done that to see _him_ , and instead of chastising him he copied his movements tentatively.

“It felt much longer. It _was_ much longer.” Nico’s face had never been so close to his. He saw his lips moving, heard the words coming out of his mouth, but they seemed out of sync. Then he realized that Nico’s voice had changed in his absence. The fact brought upon him an unpleasant squeeze in his stomach, and a sense of possessiveness he would have considered uncharacteristic of himself. He didn’t want to miss anything concerning Nico anymore.

“What do you mean?”

He told him.

In essence it was a sickening, depraved story. Then again, it was something out of old myths. But by the way Nico told it, calmly, almost fondly, he could tell how the less pleasant aspects of the ordeal had been dulled by time and repetition.

“I’ve learned a lot.” He finished. “Enough to realize that you could have been the one to teach me.”

There was so much he wanted to ask but he focused on the one that made his heart pound.

“Is it true? You did all that for me?” He asked instead.

“I did it for me.” Nico said. He slid his hand from out of their embrace, and cupped Will’s jaw, his thumb gliding over the contours repeatedly. “I did it so that I could understand you. So that I could let myself love you.”

Will leaned in. The blood roaring up to his ears couldn’t distract him from the way Nico’s eyes fluttered shut. Nico’s lips were thin, dry, and the stray chapped flakes dragged against him as he pressed his lips against his. Nico was rigid under his arms, and his hand on his face tightened painfully. He pulled back, alarmed.

“Is this..? Can I..?”

Nico’s eyes opened to annoyed slits, and his hand pulled Will’s face back towards him.

They met with a clash of teeth. Will pulled back a miniscule distance, then moved against him. Nico was still at first, and then eventually started to copy his movements until they found a sloppy rhythm. He could feel a bit of swelling starting up in his lower lip, and maybe there was some twisted universe in which he cared, but this was not it. He licked Nico’s lips, and Nico gave out a small groan as he permitted entrance. The sound was sweet enough to eat, and heck, he actually did. He grinned against his mouth at the thought, but only for a second, because Nico’s mouth was still slightly open, and he wasn’t going to miss a chance like that for all the drachmas in the world.

Lips, teeth, tongue, and eventually, air.

They pulled away, and he was ridiculously glad to see that Nico was just as breathless as he was.

“Will.” He breathed. He loved the way Nico said his name. He said it in the way that only he could, full of gravitas, as if the fate of the whole world clung to his lips. “I want to make love to you.”

Nobody could expect him to be able to think after those words. He stared at Nico’s flushed face. Had he always been so beautiful, or was it the kiss and the months apart forcing open Will’s eyes? Nico’s flush descended down to his neck, and flowered towards his ears. He watched the shell of that ear, usually hidden under his hair, floppy and a bit big jutting out from his small face, reddening. He kissed it, and moved his lips down to the soft lobe.

It was going too fast. He knew, and Nico knew. They’d been moving too slowly, they were now moving too fast. He almost laughed, and the influx of his breath on Nico’s ear had Nico gasp out loud. Who put those speed limits, maximum and minimum? Who made those rules, and dared to trespass the little grove only the two shared? Why should he listen to them when Nico wanted him, (and he did, he really did, Will believed it with the unwavering conviction of a religious fanatic), and who was he to deny the things Nico wanted?

He pushed himself up on his elbow, and moved his hand down to Nico’s hip. He pressed against him, and moved his lips down to his sharp jawline and to his neck.

First kiss, then declaration of love, then sex-he’d thought.

Fuck the romantic comedies and the romance novels. They were going at it in the opposite way, and it was okay, because they were hoping to arrive at the opposite end. From eternity to a split second, from knowing to discovering.

He’d been stupid enough to think there were rules to adhere. Restrictions and destinies and social customs he didn’t know that were there, notions of _steps_ he didn’t know he’d made up, those were the things that had stopped him before from telling Nico that he loved him. The thought that he might never be able to tell him, that was his nightmare for the last two months.

Nico’s skin, taught on his collarbone, was cool against his lips. He didn’t know if he were trying to remember Nico against his lips, or trying to imprint himself on Nico. His hand moved to Nico’s sternum, feeling him breathing in deep, slow intakes. He had expected Nico to be more responsive, but he was… He stopped to look up at Nico’s face.

“Nico?”

Nico was fast asleep, lips still red, but hanging slightly open.

He laughed into Nico’s shirt. Still grinning, he brought himself up to wrap himself around the figure next to him.

He’d often imagined them fitting together like puzzle pieces. They didn’t. Nico’s bony joints dug into him, and he needed to piss fifteen minutes ago. And really, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

They weren’t perfect together, they were flawed in their own way, and they would never complete each other. They weren’t sunshine and shadow, or night and day, or life and death, or ying and yang. They weren’t opposites, just different facets from a jumbled yarn of human emotions. They didn’t need some cliché expression or halfhearted symbolism to describe what they had. They were Will and Nico, that was all there was to it, and all it mattered was that for the moment, they were in each other’s embrace.

Nico moaned in his sleep and pressed closer to him. And Will, he had to bury his face in Nico’s hair to stop himself from shouting out loud, Nico, Nico, Nico. He stopped himself, because some things were better whispered in the dark- things sacred and cherished.

His mouth full of name of the boy he loved, he watched, through a black forest of hair, the sun filter through the shadows, and bring with it, the comfortingly fragile promise of a tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> This months old drabble was originally the finale of a much longer piece that will never come to light, but hopefully(!!) it will work well enough on its own. Please, ask me anything!  
> I decided to post it because I promised a sequel, and I never delievered. As Nico and Percy taught us all, we should never make promises we cannot keep:( Sorry Jpanlver, I know this isn't what I promised, but please accept this as maybe a token of my apology?


End file.
